


Painted on My Heart

by sakabelle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Canon-Compliant, M/M, a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 08:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13632213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakabelle/pseuds/sakabelle
Summary: The five times Niall didn't get a tattoo and the one time he did.





	Painted on My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beautiful beta, you know who you are x

_ 2012 _

“Niall!” Louis bursts into their dressing room. They’re about to go live on stage at Madison Square Garden in roughly ten minutes. “What the fuck?”

Niall looks up from his phone. He’s been texting Amy for the last half hour, which is all well and good. Except for the fact that Harry’s decided he’s going to calm his nerves by resting his head on Niall’s shoulder. Not that he minds. “Huh?”

Louis pulls up the cuff of his jeans to reveal the screw tattoo on his ankle. The one that Harry, Zayn and Liam each have as well. “We’re about to play MSG. And we should be united as a  _ band _ ,” he stresses, standing up with a huff.

Niall rolls his eyes. “What band has matching tattoos anyway?”

“One Direction,” Louis says curtly. “Since I’m kicking you out.” He whips around and walks out the door.

Niall raises his eyebrow and turns his head to look at Harry. The two of them lock eyes for a moment before bursting into a fit of giggles.

***

_ 2013  _

Niall laughs softly as Gemma presses a damp washcloth to his wrist. They’re sitting cross-legged on his plush hotel bed, cut up scraps of soggy paper scattered around them. It’s another night down under - in New Zealand, to be exact. With a horde of fans outside, there’s nowhere they can escape to other than each other’s rooms.

“So, what’s going on with you and my brother?” Gemma asks, keeping her hand firmly pressed down on Niall’s skin. 

Niall can feel his cheeks turn pink. Well, that’s a loaded question. There was a sloppy kiss during rehearsals right before the tour started up again. Then there was the night they ended up falling asleep in Harry’s hotel room after watching  _ Love Actually  _ for the twentieth time. Harry’s choice, not Niall’s. 

There’s the way his heart pounds in his chest every time he thinks about him. Sort of like what’s happening right now. 

“Nothing,” Niall lies as he keeps looking down.

Gemma just shakes her head. She pulls the washcloth off and peels back the paper - just in time for Harry to walk back into the room.

Niall’s heart leaps into his throat. Not that he wasn’t expecting Harry to come back - he’d just gone to get more ice.

Harry places the ice bucket on the dresser and plops himself down beside Niall. “So you’ve finally got a tattoo, did you?” he laughs softly, admiring the temporary leaf on Niall’s wrist. He leans down and blows on it gently.

“We match,” Gemma says proudly, holding out her own wrist.

“Hmmmm,” Harry says with a smirk, looking over at Niall. He leans down and softly kisses the side of Niall’s wrist, careful not to mess up his art. “I like Niall’s better.”

Niall can’t help the butterflies in his stomach.

***

_ 2014 _

“Niall? You alright, pet?”

Niall’s eyes flutter open. Harry fades into view, standing above him. He’s got a concerned look on his face, and it only gets worse as he kneels down beside him.

Groaning as pain sears through his left shoulder, he sits up. “What happened?”

“You passed out.” Liam’s voice echoes through the hotel room.

Oh, that’s right. Niall puts his head in his hands as it starts to come back to him. He and Harry were going to go out and try to take in a show on Broadway without getting mobbed. Niall had gone into Liam’s hotel room to check up on him before they left. He’d noticed Liam was in there with his usual tattoo artist. Curious as to how this whole process worked, he’d walked over to watch. That was when he saw the needle and the ink and the blood... and then the floor.

“Right,” Niall mutters, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t need to be sorry,” Harry says softly, rubbing his back gently. “Are you hurt?”

Niall shakes his head. He’s not. He must have fallen on his arm, because that hurts a bit, but it’s nothing unbearable. 

Harry presses a kiss to his forehead. 

“Going to have to get over your fear if you ever want any ink of your own,” Liam says with a bit of a laugh.

Niall rolls his eyes. “Don’t need any ink.”

“I think you’d look good. Little shamrock on your arm,” Harry says with a grin.

Niall gives him an unimpressed look. “Don’t need it. C’mon, let’s go.” He stands up and shoves his hands into his pockets as he walks out of the room. 

***

_ 2015 _

“Let me see,” Niall says once they’re back in their hotel room. 

Harry giggles softly. He pulls up his shirt sleeve to reveal the plastic wrapped  _ Late Late  _ tattoo on his arm. Niall peers at it and sighs. “I can’t believe you went through with that.”

Harry just smiles as he pulls his shirt off and tosses it on the floor. He lays down on the king-sized hotel bed. After stripping down to his Calvin’s, Niall snuggles up beside him.

“I’ve got a confession,” Harry says softly, weaving his fingers in Niall’s hair.

“Hmmmm.” Niall’s hardly listening. His head’s resting on the soft pillows and sleep is coming for him fast.

“The game was rigged.”

Niall’s eyes shoot open at that. He sits up. “What?”

“James and I rigged it. We knew I was going to get the tattoo all along. I knew which box to pick.”

Niall just gapes at him. “And you couldn’t tell me?! What if I’d picked the wrong box?  _ Harry _ .”

Harry keeps smiling. “I knew you’d just pick one up off the end. And it wouldn’t have been good TV if you knew, love.”

“And if I hadn’t?” Niall can’t help but ask, glancing down at Harry’s freshly inked arm again. “If I’d picked the box with the tattoo in it?”

“I’d have switched with you,” Harry says with a shrug. “There was no way it was going to be you. That’s why we rigged it.”

Relief washes over Niall’s face for a second time that night. He glances down at Harry’s arm again and then back up at his smiling face. He lowers himself on top of Harry, careful not to touch his arm. “You’d have done that for me?”

“Of course,” Harry replies, as if it’s no big deal. “Didn’t want you to have to suffer. Can you imagine if the only tattoo you ever got was on James’s show?”

Maybe Harry doesn’t realise it, but tears prick at the sides of Niall’s eyes. He’d really sucked up this stupid game, accepting that he was just going to have to be a trooper and go through with it if his stupid box had the tattoo in it. All along his boyfriend was ensuring there was no way that would happen.

“I love you,” Niall says softly, kissing Harry’s mouth before moving downwards and planting more kisses on his chest.

“I love you too.” Harry draws in a sharp breath when Niall gets down to his hip bone. “You don’t have to-”

Niall shakes his head. He knows he doesn’t have to do anything. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. He dips his head down and goes back to nipping and sucking at Harry’s soft skin.

Harry’s fingers find their way into Niall’s hair again. “Well, I’m certainly not going to push you away.”

***

_ 2016 _

“A fucking eagle? Because you’re fucking free? Of us? Of me?” Niall screeches into his mobile. He’s sitting on his bed in his new house in LA. One he’d bought once the band was over and he thought he’d be spending more time there. Because Harry lived there and it only made sense.

That is, until Harry told Niall he was planning to go solo. Niall had been so furious that he’d told Harry to go solo, then. That he’d obviously lied and had been lying to him for the past year. That was on Christmas day.

Now, Liam’s texted him pictures of Harry on a yacht, presumably signing the fucking deal that ended the band. And to top of all off, he’s got a ghastly eagle tattooed on his right arm. It covers up his “Things I Can” tattoo - because now he can do whatever the fuck he wants, apparently.

Harry sighs on the other end. “Niall-”

“Don’t! Don’t Harry. I don’t even know why the fuck I’m ringing you or why the fuck I’m giving you the time of day. You got a fucking eagle tattooed on you as a fucking symbol of the fucking band being over. How the fuck do you think that’s supposed to make me fucking feel? Fuck.” He tacks on one last curse for good measure. 

“It doesn’t mean that,” Harry says. His voice is calm, even in the midst of Niall’s rage. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Fuckin’ bullshit. You don’t get a fuckin’ tattoo and not have it mean something.”

Harry sighs again. “They don’t always have to mean something. If you weren’t so...”

“If I weren’t so what, Harry?” Niall snaps after Harry trails off.

“Idealistic,” Harry finally settles on.

“Oh,  _ I’m  _ idealistic? Fuck you.” He hangs up the call and throws his phone across the room. It lands on the floor with a dull thump and Niall doesn’t bother to go pick it up. Instead he stares at the white walls of his new bedroom.

Where the hell did it all go wrong?

***

_ 2017 _

“You were great,” Niall says softly. He pulls away from Harry, the feeling of Harry’s arms around him once again filling his chest with warmth. Harry’s just come off stage at  _ We Can Survive.  _

They’ve seen each other a couple times this year. Against his better judgement, he’d gone to see one of Harry’s shows in LA about a month ago. After the show was over, he’d slipped out without bothering to go backstage. A couple days later, they’d seen each other for a fleeting moment at the iHeartRadio Festival.

“Thanks,” Harry says, looking down at him. Niall catches his eyes for a moment, but after almost two years of not speaking he’s unable to figure out his thoughts. Is he annoyed that he’s there? Hurt about everything that happened between them?

Harry smiles. Niall gulps his feelings down his throat. The same feelings that had crept up five years ago. Is it possible that Harry’s actually content? Maybe he’s forgiven him.

Niall chews at the inside of his mouth. He reaches out and touches Harry’s arm. He trails his fingers over the eagle tattoo, regret swirling inside his stomach. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so rash. Maybe he should have taken a step back and thought about it when Harry told him about his plans to go solo, even if just for a little while.

Now he’s gone and fucked it all up. Even if everything looks great from the outside.

“I like this,” Niall mutters, gingerly tracing a couple of the lines with his fingernail. “Looks good on you.” It’s the only way he knows how to say he’s sorry.

“Yeah?” Harry says with a smirk, brushing right past the awkwardness and implications. “When are you gonna get one?”

Niall looks down at Harry’s arm again. He hasn’t thought about it as much lately, not like he used to when he was surrounded by new tattoos every other day. He always assumed he’d get one at some point, but he’d just forgotten about it for the last year or so.

“Now,” he says before he can stop the word from coming out of his mouth. He supposes it couldn’t hurt. So why not just get it over with?

Harry raises his eyebrow and laughs a little bit. “What?”

Niall glances around. There’s people everywhere, but backstage no one’s really paying any attention to them. He grips Harry’s hand. “C’mon. You always said you wanted to be there when it happened.”

Harry nods his head slowly, never breaking eye contact. “You sure?”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

“Alright.” He pulls out his phone and sends a quick text. “I know a guy.”

Niall laughs. “‘Course ya do.”

  
  


An hour later they’re sitting in a small tattoo shop in West Hollywood. The shop is closed to everyone but the two of them.

Niall’s sitting in a leather chair, watching as his skin gets cleaned up and ready. He gulps and squeezes Harry’s hand. He’s got to look away when the needle touches him. Harry offers him a comforting smile and Niall takes a deep breath.

For that hour, it’s like nothing’s changed at all. 

Until the artist announces that he’s done and Niall glances down at his permanently inked skin. It’s almost shiny - the black outline of a four leaf clover and a few highlights of green around it. It sits on him in the same place that Harry’s eagle sits.

“Told you it’d look good on you,” Harry says, peering over and admiring Niall’s artwork.

Niall doesn’t turn to look at it himself - he’ll have plenty of opportunities for that. Instead, he stares down at the mess of curls on Harry’s head. He keeps their fingers laced together, enjoying the last few seconds before they’ve got to go back to the real world.

Maybe the actual tattoo doesn’t mean anything. It’s a shamrock. He’s Irish. It’s a pretty obvious choice. But this evening with Harry and the years leading up to it?

It’s everything.


End file.
